Grace
by sapphirerosha110
Summary: After Renesmee's birth, Alice has a breakdown over her unsatisfied maternal instinct and will do whatever she can to be able to raise a child.
1. Misery

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight**

**A/N: I don't know why I'm doing this. I hate Twilight. Goddamn Plot Bunnies**

Chapter One: Burdened

_Alice POV_

There isn't much for me to do right now. Rosalie has taken control of the care of the new baby, and Carlisle and Edward are overseeing Bella as she makes the transition from being warm, alive and human into being like us. Cold and hard for eternity. It doesn't seem like she's in pain. She's lying perfectly still, but that's probably the part of her that so desperately doesn't want others to worry at her expense.

So, I retreated to Jasper's and my bedroom and curled up among the pillows. Half of the bed is covered in pillows because I like to snuggle with them, all soft and plush, so contrary to what we are. I think about Bella on the brink of death elsewhere in the house and see her back arching 3 hours into the future as her heart races against the power of the venom, ultimately losing. She falls back and her blood-red eyes snap open in wonder of the world she wasn't aware of before.

I think about Rosalie taking care of the newborn with all the fervor that she would have given to her own child, had she been able to conceive one, and the pain of longing sears through me.

Bella is special, because unlike most vampire women, she has a child of her own that she carried and gave birth to, despite it nearly ripping her life away. I align with the rest of us, those that wish we could have children with the man they spend eternity loving and being faithful to with every endless day.

I wasn't insane, I just knew things that other people thought it was impossible to know. They locked me up and left me to rot in an asylum, and when I found Carlisle and the rest of the Cullens, they believed I was too young when I was changed to be concerned with such things. Unfortunately, your biological clock doesn't stop you from wanting to have children, whether you are able to or not.

I feel my eyes grow moist with venom tears that spill down my cheeks. They are hot and acidic against my marble skin like salty tears burn human faces. Jasper is walking toward the door, he already knows I'm upset. He always knows.

The white painted door swings closed with a slight click and he pauses for a moment before turning around. In his future I can see how I look. Pitifully small and lost amongst the large and fluffy pastel pillows, with my arms wrapped around my ankles and my head resting on my knees.

Wordlessly, he sits down on the edge of the bed and puts an arm around me. I fall into the gesture without unclasping my hands, so my knees and body keel toward him also. I close my eyes and lean into his comfort as I feel his lips press against the top of my head. I can't make out the words he says, but his whispers soothe my aches.

After sitting silently for a long while, he asks me

"What is it that has you so sad?"

"I want a baby." I mumble into my legs without taking my eyes of the bedspread. Jasper moves my arms around his neck and holds me so tightly that if I needed breath I would have been gasping for air. I pulled myself tighter into the security of his embrace. It was the kind of hug he gives when he is giving empathy.

"I'm so sorry, Alice. This whole thing is so difficult for you."

"I don't think Edward knows yet," I wiped away a trail of venom from my cheek, "I think he's still too concerned doting on Bella to be distracted by the thoughts of his sister."

"He knows," Jasper spoke quietly, "And he is sorry. For you, for Esme, and for Rose. How you three are forced to watch this miracle happen while being barren. He knows your thoughts, but he can't feel what you are going through as I can."

"I suppose it is part of the universe trying to balance the order. Creatures like us shouldn't exist, immortals, nearly gods in earthly form. If nothing can destroy us but others like us, it stands to reason that nothing should create us in and of itself. Our kind must take from a human their vitality, breath, warmth and fertility in exchange for eternal life."

"Alice, she is going to be everyone's daughter. She will grow up around this whole family and all eight of us will be influences on her, teaching her about life and raising her. Together. You will have a hand in her upbringing."

"But she won't be mine!" I allowed my voice to escalate "She won't be my daughter, your daughter. A product of us sharing our love. As much as she will be a daughter to all of us in spirit, she is Edward and Bella's alone."

With that he remained silent and simply held me. I gently pulled my arms free from his neck and left his grasp

"I'm going out to hunt. I won't be too long."

"Alice…"

"I need some fresh air, and some blood will help calm me."

I opened the doors to our balcony, placed one foot on the rail, and leapt off into the maze of exquisite green that provided my temporary solace.

**A/N 2: I am anti-Twilight, but this will not turn into a parody fic. Unfortunately, I am dead serious about this. There will be more chapters, they will be plot-driven. If that's too much substance for you, I understand. If not, leave a review and tell me what you think.**


	2. Longing

**Disclaimer: Same as usual. Don't own it.**

**A/N: Congratulations, you made it to the second chapter. I'm trying to make this story at least somewhat good.**

Chapter Two: The Forest

_Alice POV_

The ferns and leaves fly past as I dash in and amongst them, ducking under branches and jumping over roots. It is always a thrill running through the forest off our backyard and feeling the constraints of our secrecy slipping away as I give over control to the huntress within me to seek prey and let my limbs carry me there.

My ears sharpen to hear the fall of hooves, my eyes open for the flutters of activity among the stationary life of the trees, and above all, I seek the musky scent of animal blood. Not nearly as sweet and rich as human, but spicy and dark. It will be enough to slake the burn in the back of my throat and stem the flow of venom like saliva in my mouth.

I veer to the left as I hear the footfalls of a deer and catch the scent of its blood. It's young. Not a baby, but not quite an adult. As I get closer, I scale a tree with the ease of a spider and hang perched, watching the surroundings and listening to the birds chattering away nearby in the canopy.

It wanders innocently into my line of sight. It stands only thirty feet away, and there are no branches in my way. I carefully move around the trunk of the tree so that I grip only with my toes, and my hands which are stretched out behind me. In one powerful, fluid motion, I release my hands and spring off the hard wood. The faintest of whispers meets my ears as the air rushes past me.

My world becomes a tangle of warm skin and blood as I latch on and sink my teeth in. Its heart pounds in panic and it scrabbles with its limbs against the ground, helpless beneath me. Its feeble attempts slow and cease. The metallic taste lingers in my mouth, a memory of the kill. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand to remove the traces of blood which may have spilled onto my skin and clean it off on the flank of the rapidly cooling body in front of me. Feeling renewed and relaxed, I turn back to run toward the house.

The outlines of the leaves and branches are sharper now as I run past, but suddenly I bring myself to a halt. A shudder runs through my body and I turn in the direction of a smaller grove of trees. The burn is back in my throat and it feels as though the feeding I took not moments earlier never occurred. A human is nearby in the trees and their blood calls to me. I am desperately thirsty again, but after taking a few steps in that direction, I realize what I am doing and stop myself.

I disgust myself with what I almost did and as I am about to start running again, a child wanders out from behind a tree. She thankfully doesn't see me, but I feel the same pang of longing I did when I thought of Rosalie playing with the new baby. Her blood smelled so sweet because she is still so young and innocent. I want to run over and scoop her up, to take her home with me, but I know that she has a family somewhere, probably out for a picnic in the woods on one of the rare pleasant days in Forks.

Before I can think about it anymore, I sprint as fast as I can back to the house and jump up onto the balcony. I balance for a moment on the rail looking in at Jasper, who was waiting and watching for my return.

"You had a good kill and calmed down for a while, but then you fell right back to your prior state." I step down onto the balcony and move toward him through the open door

"There was a little girl in the forest."

"You had to resist the temptation."

"It was more than that, Jasper. I wanted… I wanted to kidnap her. I wanted to bring her back and keep her. But I know that's wrong, and she would never want to stay here anyway. She is too old to accept us as a family. The problem is that I wanted to, and for a split second I almost did." I sit down next to him on the bed and stare off in another direction

"But you didn't, Alice. And that is the important thing."

"I know. I really am happy for Bella and Edward, you can tell that can't you?"

"Of course honey," I can feel him smiling behind me, "We're all happy for them. It's an absolute wonder that the baby exists at all. Carlisle is amazed, and the rest of us are astounded because it's something we've never seen before."

"Once things settle down a little, I'm going to talk to Carlisle. I'm very curious about how it was even possible."

"It's useful sometimes, having a doctor for a father."

"Indeed it is," images flash through my brain, "It's almost time."

"Time for what?" Jasper asked confusedly

"Almost time for Bella's transformation to be complete."

"We should be around, just in case."

"Agreed. Come on." I gesture toward him and he follows me out the door.

**A/N 2.0: Reviews are, as usual, always appreciated.**


	3. Confusion

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters created by Stephenie Meyer, the only part of this story that is mine is the idea I have presented for enjoyment only, with no intent to try and make money from the plot. No copyright infringement is intended**

**A/N: Yeah, I know the chapters are short, but hey, I wrote chapters one and two during the 2 o'clock hour of the morning on Easter Sunday. I will be writing longer chapters later.**

**And please excuse any geek-speak, I'm trying desperately to work around the MASSIVE plot hole in Breaking Dawn.**

Chapter three: Carlisle

_Alice POV_

We all saw Bella wake up and be shocked by the true clarity of the world that she had been blind to as a human. She was beautiful, as all of us are. Of course she had always been beautiful to Edward, a fact Rosalie was never able to understand.

After I dressed her up a bit, Edward took her out hunting for the first time, and I pulled my father aside.

"Carlisle, may I speak with you?"

"Of course," I followed him into his study and closed the door.

"I just want to know how it's possible."

"How what is possible?"

"Bella's baby," I paused to collect my thoughts, "We've all taken so many classes and have degrees in so many different things, from what I've learned in all of my biology classes, that baby can't exist."

"I'm not exactly sure what you're saying."

"Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and vampires have 25. Meiosis splits that number in half and they all pair up again in the embryo, right?"

"That is how sexual reproduction works." Carlisle shrugged slightly

"But how will they pair up if the vampires have two more chromosomes than humans do? There are no matches for 24 and 25."

"I think in that case that the vampire chromosomes would pair with one another, making an abstract match, and thereby giving the baby 24 pairs of chromosomes. Remember, Alice, this is all based on speculation. I have never heard of a vampire and a human producing a child before."

"Right, and another thing, for men to be able to… have sex…" I'd known Carlisle for years, but it was uncomfortable for me to talk about certain topics, "they have to have an erection… which means they have to have blood in their body. We all know that a newborn's human blood is all used up from their system after about a year, so, I'm kind of confused about how that works."

"We do feed on blood. Have you ever noticed that Jasper's virility is lessened the longer it's been since he fed?" Carlisle seemed perfectly at ease, but I would have blushed were I able.

"Yes," I admitted sheepishly, "alright. But back to meiosis. When a human turns into a vampire, their body becomes frozen in that state. No more biological changes occur, which is why the women don't ovulate, so how could the men have sperm?"

Carlisle sat back in his chair and placed a hand on his chin. A thin crease appeared in the perfect alabaster of his forehead and he sighed

"I don't know, Alice. I never stopped to think about it before, but you're right. It seems impossible." He pondered for a few more moments before saying "I could take samples of the ejaculate fluid from each male in the house and analyze them to see if the sperm they had when they were human is still at all viable. I would imagine that the amount and the stability would degrade with age."

"If you could, Carlisle, I would really appreciate it. I don't want to put a damper on the joy of everything, but I just want to make sense of how that baby downstairs came into being."

"Alice…" He paused, "I know this must be difficult for you." Wordlessly I slowly sat down in the chair in front of his desk and nodded solemnly.

"It's only natural to want what every woman should have. Poor Esme, I…" He stopped in his sentence, "it will always be difficult, as long as she lives here, for all of you. And pass it along to Rose to give us men a break, we can't imagine what it must be like for you."

"Thank you Carlisle." I smiled through the pain and he got up from his chair and walked around in front of me. I stood up and faced him, and he wrapped me in a hug.

"You may not be my daughter, even in the vampiric sense, but that doesn't mean I don't have a father's love for you."

I gripped him tighter and then released him. He smiled down at me and gestured toward the door

"Come on, we both have things to attend to."

**A/N 2.0: Some people obviously like this story, thank you for your reviews and please continue to review :)**


	4. Carlisle's Conference

**Disclaimer: Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer, much to the dismay of millions of teenage girls around the world who wish they could have Edward Cullen. (I'm happy with a real guy, thanks)**

**A/N: This fanfiction takes place during/after the events of Breaking Dawn.**

**The Twilight Lexicon's character bios were very helpful in the writing of this chapter, because I really didn't care enough while reading the books to pay attention to everyone's birthday, back story, and how old they were when they were turned into vampires. **

Chapter Four: Testing the Truth

The family watched through the windows from the living room at the incident occurring amongst Bella, Jacob and Edward in the backyard. Their tuned ears heard the crack of bone as Seth jumped between them when Bella lunged at Jacob.

"I can fix that." Carlisle stated, as he stood solemnly with his arms crossed in front of him. "The wolves heal quickly anyway, one of their racial traits to defend against any injuries from fighting vampires."

"I'd say 'mad' is an understatement for Bella right now." Emmett laughed and Alice turned slightly toward him

"Really? I never would have guessed." Her pixie look gave her sarcasm a quirky edge and her round innocent eyes were fixed widely on him.

"How would you feel? He's been going after her romantically for about a year now, and then all of a sudden BOOM! He imprints on her daughter. I can't believe we're going to be related to that dog." He sneered and Alice added

"They do smell bad. Humans can't tell, but I think Bella has come to notice that since she became one of us."

At that point Bella stormed away from the situation, and Carlisle went about setting Seth's bones so they would heal properly. Rosalie was still attached like Velcro to Renesmee, obsessed with her duties of pseudo-motherhood.

As the day dwindled to a close, Alice gave Carlisle an expectant look and he nodded discreetly to her.

"Emmett, Jasper, Edward, may have a moment with you please?" His silky voice carried softly through the living room, and the three men stood up to follow the man they had come to see as a father upstairs to his study.

He closed the door and motioned for the three to make themselves comfortable before he leaned against one of the bookshelves and sighed.

"What is it Carlisle?" Emmett asked, Jasper could sense his emotional discomfort, and Edward probably already knew what he was going to say.

"Earlier today Alice came to me with a few questions I hadn't thought to ask," he began ambiguously, "specifically about how Renesmee is alive today when she defies the laws of biology."

"We all defy the laws of biology, Carlisle, walking around without a pulse or breath. You're a doctor, you should know that." Edward continued

"You studied biology rather extensively too, if I am not mistaken. It is not so much her present existence that is in question, but her beginning. As we all know, when a human becomes a vampire, all bodily processes stop, no more need to eat or sleep, no production of waste, and women don't menstruate."

"Why are you telling us what we already know?" Jasper inquired

"He's getting to it, just let him talk," Edward reassured Jasper before turning his topaz eyes back to Carlisle.

"Thank you Edward. What I am saying is that if _all_ processes did stop, then men would not produce sperm, and would not be able to fertilize an egg. And since vampires must somehow digest or incorporate the blood we consume, and some change occurs in our body that produce our venom, it stands to reason that there are factors in play we have not yet considered. No one knows precisely how the vampire body works because it has never been fully studied."

The other three men took on contemplative looks, Edward ran through his extensive knowledge of human physiology to attempt to explain the phenomena. Jasper was busy thinking about what the implications of Carlisle's statement could mean for Alice, Rosalie, and all vampire women who were so desperate to have children of their own. Emmett was slightly confused as to the nature of the whole situation, because he was prepared to take it as a miracle and leave it at that.

"What I am proposing is that," Carlisle paused and cleared his throat because it was much easier discussing this matter with Alice, "I would take and analyze samples of your… ejaculate fluid. One sample from when you had fed very recently so you were satisfied, one where you had fed relatively recently and perhaps only sated, and one when you had not fed in a long time, and see if there were any differences between them."

The men reacted nearly as Carlisle had predicted they would, with a general opposition and mild disgust at the idea. Emmett was the most against it, Edward disagreeing, but less vehemently, and Jasper hardly saying anything at all. Carlisle noticed his silence and chagrined expression and asked

"Is something the matter, Jasper?"

"I'd be in favor of it. Alice is so torn apart by this baby situation that I want to do anything I can to help her, and if this will help, I'm all for it."

Silence descended for a few moments and Edward looked in Jasper's direction before he turned back to Carlisle and with the tone of a man making a grudging, but willing, sacrifice, said

"I'll do it too."

Then they all looked at Emmett who backed up a step and crossed his arms

"I said no, I'm not going to do it." His resolve was firm as he looked at the other three men in the room, but as time passed, and the expressions on the faces of his family took effect on him, he began to waver. He did not show it though, he tried to stifle his indecision by thinking about the situation itself and how wrong it seemed in his mind.

"Emmett, if you won't do it for Alice, do it for Rosalie. If Carlisle finds something that can make it some vampire women can have their own children, Rosalie would be the happiest vampire in existence." Jasper did what he did best, he appealed to emotion. It was this straw that broke Emmett down into saying

"Alright, fine. I'll do it."

"Good. I recommend that the first sample you give is when you haven't fed in a long time, say, two or three weeks. Give it to me right before you go out hunting. I have containers prepared." Carlisle walked to his desk and pulled several small jars with labeled lids from the drawer.

"And please make sure you use the right container. I don't want to have to put you through this more than I have to."

"And what about you?" Emmett asked

"I'll be analyzing myself as well. God knows that Esme's maternal instinct is the most powerful thing about her. It's why she loves each and every one of you so much."

"Okay. Don't keep us in the dark about what you find out, Carlisle, this actually sounds like an interesting experiment." Edward declared, taking his jars and leaving the room.

Emmett followed with his own containers, wordlessly, and then Jasper said

"Thank you for doing this to help Alice. I certainly didn't know what I was supposed to do."

"Don't worry about it Jasper. I'm as curious as she is about this process, and I hope that maybe it will help us explain if not understand how vampire pregnancies could work."

**A/N 2.0: Thank you so much to all of you who keep reviewing, I really appreciate it.**


	5. Interesting Findings

**Disclaimer: As usual I own nothing related to Twilight.**

(Several Weeks Later)

"Carlisle, I hope you didn't call us here to announce that you didn't find anything." Emmett said as he closed the door to Carlisle's office behind him and the other men.

"No, in fact I found quite a lot of interesting things. I'm just not quite sure what all of them mean."

"Well, then tell us what you've found, maybe I can help." Edward offered

"Alright, well, first of all, as I expected, there was absolutely nothing in the sample taken when all of you had not fed in a very long time. The lack of blood in the body and other factors such as hunger, possibly, likely contributed to the total lack of any live genetic material."

"Okay," Edward had his "thinking face" on.

"It was the sample taken when you had not fed very recently, or had fed within a week but it was not a satisfying feed where things became interesting. Edward, your sample was viable. The count was low, but they were alive, the same with yours Jasper, and so did mine. Emmett, yours still had nothing."

"Alright, and the final sample, just after a hunt where you felt sated and satisfied. Edward and Jasper, your counts were both only slightly less than an average human male. Mine was less so than that, and Emmett, your count was around where all of ours were with the second sample."

Emmett sneered at Edward and Jasper who couldn't help smirking slightly.

"Something funny?" He threatened with subtle anger

"I'm not through yet," Carlisle continued, "I want to share with you why I think this is. Edward, until you met Bella, you had been celibate for 90 years, correct?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because in that case all of the sperm you had while alive would have still been in your body, and the presence of the blood from feeding caused it to 'wake up' so to speak."

"But then what about my numbers? I mean you said mine were as high as his and Alice and I… well, we certainly haven't been dormant for the better part of a century, and before I met her I was…"

"I know Jasper, but also, you were drinking human blood all that time. I think that because it was human, not animal blood, and the fact that sexual reproduction is a distinctly human characteristic, the human blood interacting with the cells of your vampiric body caused them to actively divide."

"So you're saying that blood drinking makes reproduction possible?"

"It would appear that way, yes."

"So why are my numbers so low?" Emmett asked from the corner

"Emmett, you've been pretty good about sticking to the animal diet, and let's face it, you and Rosalie almost knocked down that house Esme restored for you."

"Yeah alright, I guess." He mumbled

"But Carlisle," Jasper interrupted, "Why don't other processes continue? Why only meiosis, and even then only in males?"

"I'd have to study the women further to determine that it really is only the males, although vampire women have NEVER reported a menstruation as far back as the Volturi can remember, and that's over three thousand years. But as to the why? Vampires have been given a life after death. And what constitutes life? Above all it is a metabolism, we wouldn't get hungry again if we didn't use the energy from blood; the need for nourishment, blood; and the ability to reproduce. So while nature may have made it considerably harder for us to reproduce on our own instead of turning humans, it may still be possible."

A look of guarded hope came over Jasper's face

"Don't tell Alice anything yet, Jasper, I want to make sure before we get her hopes up."

"But the only way to know for sure is to test her."

"Be that as it may, I want to move slightly beyond speculation before I try to figure out how to test Alice. I highly doubt that standard equipment can see through vampire skin and muscle. Let me work on this now."

Jasper and Emmett obediently left the room, but Edward stood where he had been throughout the entire conversation.

"Edward, I have to work."

"Do you know anything about why Bella's human cells and my vampire ones could pair up?"

"I'd be lying if I said I did. However, the fluid in which vampire sperm is suspended is similar to our venom. It could be that this semi-venom entered the egg and altered it just enough that the two of you could match without freezing the development."

Edward nodded with a serious look on his face.

"Well, you have work to do and I have a wife to get back to."

"I will call you together later to share what I find. And remember, not a word to the women about this. Esme, Rose and Alice all want a child so badly, I don't want to have to tell them that they can't have one after saying it's possible."

"You don't have to worry about me, Carlisle, I read other people's minds." He smiled as he walked out the door.

He hadn't reached the end of the hall when the most beautiful voice in the world came from behind him and he turned to face the speaker

"So what does Carlisle say in these meetings when he steals all you guys away from us?" Bella asked as she walked toward him, gliding her alabaster hand along the rail of the stairs. The amber red of her eyes was a disturbing sight. He knew he'd always miss the deep, warm brown they'd been while she was alive.

"It's secret planning stuff to surprise you women, we're not allowed to say." Edward told her when he contained his lack of words at her stunning beauty. In her life she had possessed qualities that ensnared and entranced him, and they had only been amplified by her transition.

"Oh fine then." Bella scowled slightly and pushed past him

"Bella, what's wrong?" He asked, immediately worried that she was upset somehow

"You know I hate surprises. I hate surprises even more than being the center of attention, or being asked to dance."

"You're much more graceful now."

"That doesn't matter. I hate surprises."

"It's not a bad surprise, I promise. Besides, it won't be much of a surprise to you anyway; it's more that Carlisle wants to keep it a secret from Esme."

"So can you tell me?" Bella's frightening eyes glinted hopefully

"No, I can't, we aren't allowed to tell the women. I'm sorry Bella."

Bella sighed, but the feeling brought no relief of exasperation as it had done in her life.

"I'm going to go check on Renesmee, okay?" Bella said and without waiting for a response, walked past him and down the stairs.

Edward leaned on the rail and watched her descend into the bright living room. He glanced back at the closed door to Carlisle's study and said a prayer to a God he wasn't sure existed that Carlisle would find something that would bring so much fulfillment and happiness to the women in the Cullen house. The sounds of Carlisle's focused thinking, Rose's and Esme's jealousy, and Alice's pain pressed on his mind and he retreated to the room that he lived in before he married Bella, put on music, and attempted to force the strain of the house into the background of the lyrical beauty of Debussy.


	6. Maternal Suffering

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Twilight.**

Chapter Six – Alice's POV

Carlisle called me into his office about three months after I first approached him about the issue of Bella's pregnancy. He told me about how the men all showed signs of being able to have children, and that he would have to examine the women to see what their conditions were. I knew this would probably be invasive one way or another, but I honestly don't care.

"The only problem," he said, "is that I have honestly no idea how we could manage that. Only a vampire's teeth and nails can penetrate a vampire's skin. No scalpel would be of any use, and as we found out with Bella, ultrasounds are useless. You don't have hormone levels that would indicate when you were about to ovulate. I want this to work, Alice, and I will try everything I can to make it work, but don't get your hopes too high."

Then it struck me, and I exclaimed aloud

"The werewolves!" My vision was clouded by the image of the future laid over what I saw in the present. "The werewolves are equipped with natural weaponry, their teeth and claws are made to be able to destroy vampires. Otherwise they wouldn't exist."

"Hmm," Carlisle frowned, "Supposing we got hold of a werewolf claw and I managed to cut you open to see what the conditions of your body were, how would you heal again?"

I never thought about that.

"But…" I stammered as I tried to think, "When Jasper was bitten by all those newborns… they tore open his neck and arms, because vampire teeth can break vampire skin. He healed somehow. It's why he has all those silver scars that you can see in the sunlight. Do you think it was his diet of human blood?"

Carlisle kept his chin resting on his hand for a few moments before he said "I suppose it's possible. Is human blood really the key to this whole thing? But if it were that simple then why could vampires never have children. If we metabolize the blood, what happens to the waste?"

"I don't think we do. I think that we don't digest it so much as absorb it. The blood flows through us like it would have if we were alive. When I've just fed properly, I can see the veins in my wrist."

"Then in order to make this happen, you and Jasper would have to utilize massive amounts of human blood…"

"Oh, so it was okay for Bella to be sucking down O-positive the entire time she was pregnant because you could take some from the hospital because it's the most common blood type and would be replaced in days, but you can't get anything else for me to have a baby? Carlisle?"

I saw the decision form in his mind. I saw how pitiful I looked to him. How angry and hurt. I suppose the advantage of living with compassionate vampires is that they tend not to bandage their bleeding hearts too well.

"I'll see what I can do, but Alice," he trailed off, "I know you can't remember much of your time in the asylum, but… it must have been an incredible physical strain on your body. Look how thin you are now. When human women are put in conditions where their bodies couldn't sustain a fetus, ovulation shuts down. You have to be prepared to accept the possibility that you don't have any viable eggs because your menstrual cycle wasn't working."

"Carlisle, I know that the odds are stacked far against me, but I still have hope. I have to." And with that I walked out of Carlisle's office and saw him stealing the blood from the hospital. More O-positive, and some A-positive. Since almost 70% of humans fall into those two blood types, they would be the most readily available.

In the future I see him filing down the edge of a werewolf claw in front of the fire one night, his keen eyes able to tell when it will reach the needed sharpness.

I see him standing over me, the black claw in his hand, with the blood nearby in case anything goes wrong. I can't smell it through the plastic bag, but the blackish crimson taunts me with the promise of the human wine I haven't tasted in so long.

I can't see any farther into the future. I can't see any freak accidents that may or may not happen. And most infuriatingly of all, I can't see the results of the test that Carlisle is running on me.

And I can see the darkness behind my eyelids when I have them clenched shut in pain as he cuts me open. No anesthetic could possibly work on me, and I feel a dull ache of a wound that hasn't formed yet. But I know that every woman goes through pain for her child, and I am ready for it when the time comes.

**A/N: It's amazing, I sit down in front of the computer and this story just kind of flows out of my fingertips. I have a little bit of time, so I will try to get the next chapter out to you guys as soon as possible.**


	7. Unraveling

**Disclaimer: As usual, I own nothing that is related to Twilight in any way, shape or form, this story is purely for entertainment purposes, I am not benefiting from it financially in any way, and no copyright infringement is intended.**

**A/N: Thank you all for your supportive reviews, and to xxLooneyLovegoodxx about how I come up with these theories: I'm working toward a degree in Biochemistry, and I have a fantastic imagination, without which I wouldn't be a writer.**

Chapter Seven - Alice's PoV

It was the worst pain I'd ever felt. If I remembered my conversion, it may not have been so bad. In comparison it might have felt like a light cramp, but as it was all I could think about was the searing pain ripping my abdomen open.

Werewolves are designed to be able to tear vampires apart. They're our only natural enemies, but I didn't think that it would be this unbearable. Is it possible that the werewolves have something about their claws like our venom that induces immeasurable pain?

I thought about all of this after the procedure of course. I was nowhere near coherent enough to form any words or thoughts. I remember feeling Jasper sitting beside me, holding my hand and projecting soothing feelings toward me. Looking back I find it incredibly sweet of him to do that, because being an empath he would have felt my pain too.

Carlisle said everything went alright. Of course he was fascinated by a look inside the body of a vampire, because no one (to popular knowledge) had ever explored it before, so he kept me opened up a little bit longer than perhaps was necessary in order for him to take a look at my insides.

The lingering metallic taste in my mouth reminds me of the human blood Carlisle gave me at the end of the procedure to help the incision heal. My throat is on fire now because of its temptation, and my eyes are red tinged around the outside.

There is a long silver mark across the once perfect silk-over-steel of my abdomen, and I know that if I do end up having a child that when he or she is born, my body will be nearly destroyed, if Bella's pregnancy was any indication. Then again, it isn't like most vampires take a Caribbean vacation and go sunbathing, but I take a certain amount of pride in my appearance. After all, I didn't make a fortune predicting the stock market to shop at thrift stores.

But I can easily put my vanity aside. I would take the pain of today and any scars in the world if I could just have this baby.

I still don't know what will happen. I can tell the future based on people's decisions, not some ultimate goal that will come to an end whether I like it or not. I'll only know if I can have a baby if Carlisle finds out it's possible, and then if he decides to tell me. Then I'll be clueless as to whether or not it will actually work, because that is no one's decision.

What makes it even harder is that my foresight has been getting worse lately. Carlisle thinks it's because I'm so worked up over this baby thing. I lost to Edward at chess more times in the last three months than I have in the last 30 years, because I can't see what moves he's going to make. Sure, he can read my mind and he knows I can't tell what he has planned. Our family has an unspoken agreement that pity victories mean nothing, so we pull no punches when it comes to competition.

I'm blind. Without my foresight I feel as lost as a human would if their eyes suddenly darkened to the world around them and they were wandering around with no direction. With the future literally within sight, I have always felt sure and in control, but now I feel like I'm caught in this spiral that only goes down.

"I have to go." I say and push Jasper's hand off of my shoulder, where he is still trying to soothe and comfort me, but it isn't working.

"Where?" He asked, a look of concern creasing his pale face.

"I don't know." I say as I stand up and move toward the window.

"Alice…" I hear him call after me, but it's too late. I've already fallen into the air beneath the window. I land on one foot and immediately propel myself forward into a full sprint. It feels invigorating to rush this fast through the forest, the wind whipping against my face as I dodge the tree branches. I don't lose my breath, I don't fatigue, and for the first time in a long time, I feel free.

I don't run for very long, because even though the forest is fairly big, it has its limits and when you run as fast as vampires do, you exhaust those limits pretty quickly. I slow down and amble through the trees, taking a moment to just breath the freshness of nature into my lungs that have been weighted down by the stress of thinking about this baby.

My ears pick up every vibration of the wind rustling leaves, creatures darting through the undergrowth, the flapping of birds' wings as they cheep from the canopy overhead, the varied heartbeats of all the animals, and beneath them all, the barely audible crack of the dry twigs on the ground as I step lightly across them.

I curl up in the crook of the roots of a large tree and lean my head against the trunk. Even though I can hear every little disturbance, it is a peaceful noise. It's natural. The sound of cars is too far away for me to hear, it is just me and the world.

I close my eyes and amidst the serenity of the forest I feel my stress creeping up on me again. I hope Carlisle finds something soon so I know whether to keep my hopes up, or just resign myself to what so many of our kind already have: that vampire women aren't meant to have children of their own.

Another poisonous tear slips down my cheek and a thin vapor of steam rises from where it hits the trunk of the tree. I stare at it and think how perfect a picture it is. We are all darkness and destruction, but I keep the hope alive that somehow, some way, we can create as well.

**A/N: Yeah, I know, emo!Alice. But you know, if you wanted something with all your heart and had to wait for months to see if it was even possible, you'd start to go a little crazy too.**


	8. The Revelation

**Disclaimer: As usual I own nothing related to Twilight. It all belongs to Stephenie Meyer who I personally think made way too much money off of something she should have taken the hint and given up on after fifteen publishers rejected her, but that's just me.**

**I do however lay claim to the idea that vampires have a system of vessels that transport the blood they consume throughout their bodies. That is my original idea and in fact I am using it in a novel I'm in the process of writing. Stephenie Meyer didn't have it in her books, and it does ****not**** now belong to her just because I used it in a fanfiction.**

**A/N: To ZephyrNights- Yes, I know there are loads. Far too many to be sewn up in a single fanfiction, so I decided to choose the Bella pregnancy plot hole to resolve. Which I think I already did and now I'm just finishing the plot.**

Chapter Eight – The Revelation

Carlisle paced around his study, papers and charts spread out all over the desks and even tacked up on the walls over the pictures that lined the office. Portraits and landscapes that dated back almost as far as Carlisle had been alive were overlaid with stark medical research of the modern age, a strange contrast to behold.

Every day, every free moment Carlisle had he spent poring over the notes he had taken during the procedure with Alice and compared them with human fertility data, all the while trying to put her screams of pain out of his head.

Vampires were no strangers to suffering, he told himself as he sank down into a chair and looked out the window into the forest. When you live forever you see a lot of things, war, famine, plague. Not to get all biblical or anything, but it was true. In a vampire's lifetime it was possible to see the black underbelly of humanity so often that you could become jaded to it.

But that didn't help if you were a surgeon who had to cut open a young girl you considered to be your daughter with absolutely no anesthesia, and a scalpel made from a claw you salvaged from the woods that came from a vicious werewolf attack a year ago.

After checking and double checking every number, every chart and every figure, Carlisle knew it all came down to him. He knew what he had to do, and because of that he knew that Alice knew. There was no way he could not tell her what he found, and because of that decision, she would already know what he was going to tell her.

It was a one in a million chance. One he was almost certain Esme and Rosalie wouldn't have. When Alice was changed, she was miraculously at the peak of her ovulation cycle. The egg was just outside her ovary and in her fallopian tube. Because of that, the lining of her uterus was thicker, in preparation to receive a fertilized egg and begin gestation.

By reviewing how the vampire sperm had interacted with human blood when he observed them, he could tell that if they were introduced to blood directly, soaked in it, then they began moving. This was after they had been out of the body for several days and had presumably died. Instead, it appeared that they had just become dormant. By doing the same to Alice, it was possible that the egg would reanimate and be able to grow a child.

At that moment there was a timid, but hurried knock on the door to Carlisle's study. He closed his eyes and murmured

"Come in." Too soft for any human to be able to hear and acknowledge, but as soon as he said it, the latch of the door clicked and the port swung open.

He didn't need to look over his shoulder to be able to tell that Alice entered the room. Jasper may have been the one able to sense emotions, but Alice carried a presence with her that was hard to ignore. He rose from the chair and turned to face her.

The thin young woman was suppressing a smile and her amber-gold eyes were shining with hope. They stood staring at each other for a moment and then Carlisle wordlessly opened his arms. In a flash, Alice had collided with him and wrapped her arms around him in a crushing hug.

"We still don't know if it will work." Carlisle murmured softly as he stroked her black hair

"I don't care." Her voice was muffled by his chest before she released him and stood back "_Might _is better than _can't_."

A light tap sounded on the door and Alice and Carlisle turned to see Rosalie standing in the doorway to the study

"Rose, come in." Carlisle motioned her forward. She ran a hand through her blond hair and with a sigh she said

"Alice was practically bouncing off the walls, so I figured you must have found something that said it was possible for her to have a baby." Her voice was somber, like Alice's had been after Renesmee had been born. Carlisle could tell what was coming next

"I want you to see if there is any way that I can too."

Carlisle walked over to Rosalie and put his hand on her shoulder

"Rose, this was a chance fluke. Alice's body was at the perfect fertile point when she was changed. And besides, Emmett's count was so low that…"

"I don't care, okay? I just don't think it's fair that you go ahead with this experiment without telling Esme and me if we can or we can't. I mean, I've been dealing with the idea that I can't have kids for decades now, and I'd be able to deal with it again as long as I knew."

"It hurts like Hell, Rose." Alice said, delicately touching her stomach

"Yeah…" the blond trailed off, "So did becoming a vampire, but I survived that one. Please Carlisle. You know how much this means to Esme and to me."

Carlisle had to steel himself for his reply, having never wanted to go through the procedure again

"Alright. I'll do it. It shouldn't take as long as it did with Alice because I know what I'm looking for now."

"Thank you Carlisle." Rosalie said with conviction, but without a hug. She wasn't as affectionate in that respect as Alice was.

"Studying the three of you together would be the easiest. Then I could compare across the three sets of results to see what I have to do. Would you be willing to do this today, Rose?"

"Absolutely. Just tell me the time."

"I will, after I talk to Esme."

Alice and Rosalie took that as their cue to leave, and they went their separate ways down the hall. Carlisle went downstairs to talk to Esme, and then prepared them both for what to expect.

Rosalie went first and she didn't have nearly as much trouble with the pain as Alice had. She was even able to say a few sentences throughout, which mostly consisted of "Is everything alright?" and "This isn't as bad as I thought"

After the two women were healed up, Carlisle once again retreated to his study to look over what he had found. From what he could tell, Alice's theory about how vampires used blood was more or less accurate. Thin connections ran from the esophagus, stomach and intestines all over the body. It was like when the conversion happened, thousands of new blood vessels appeared, ready to transport the blood all over the body.

"That's why we have 25 chromosomes…" Carlisle murmured aloud as he thought it over. Something had to provide the genetic code for the new vessels to be built, and as the venom went through the cells in the body, it built these pathways for the blood to flow through to the whole body. Carlisle knew that something of this nature had to exist because there was no way the stomach could hold as much blood as was in a human body, he just didn't expect such a vast system through which the blood could travel.

It took less time for him to review Esme and Rosalie's results because he had already done so with Alice. He broke the news to each of them separately, and held both of them as they started crying.

Rosalie, because of the assault she endured prior to her conversion, would have been unable to have children of her own even if she hadn't become a vampire. The venom fixes and perfects the body as it changes the human cells, but because of that, none of her eggs would be able to be fertilized, even if they were given a blood bath. They were encased solidly in her ovaries.

Esme had a similar situation. Because she miscarried, and then tried to commit suicide, the physical strain it put on her body caused the venom to have to seal over and knit together too much tissue. There was no way that she could conceive children.

By this time Bella was aware of the situation also, and still slightly upset at Edward for not being able to tell her anything about it until all the tests were over, but she understood. She was perfectly happy with Renesmee, and didn't want to undergo the same test. Carlisle was relieved and said that because she had a traumatic pregnancy immediately prior to her conversion in which several ribs and her spine had been broken, she wouldn't have been able to conceive another baby.

Carlisle turned his attention to Alice's case and to figuring out how to soak her in enough blood to reanimate her reproductive system. The next few days in the Cullen household were tense with waiting, more so than they had been while anticipating the Volturi attack, and each member of the family retreated to their respective activities to calm their minds. They were all waiting on Carlisle's discoveries before any of them could truly relax.

**A/N: I'm on a roll, two updates in one day.**


	9. Runaway

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Twilight.**

_Chapter Nine – Alice's POV_

Rosalie left this morning. She said it was because she wouldn't be able to handle being in a house with two babies running around when she couldn't have her own. Carlisle tried to remind her that it might not even work, but she didn't listen. She just screamed back about how she knew Carlisle "would do anything possible to make sure _Alice_ could have a baby."

She take anything as she stormed out of the house and her BMW convertible roared to life in the garage. Esme looked on with a pained expression, and Emmett arrived at the top of the stairs shortly after the door slammed.

"What's going on?" he asked as he leaned over the rail. Carlisle, Esme, Jasper and I all looked up at him, thinking that he would have been waiting in the car for Rosalie to give her speech and then drive away.

"It's Rose, she…" Carlisle fumbled for the right word, something I'd never seen him do, "she just left, Emmett. I'm sure you heard the argument."

Emmett inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Do you have any idea where she'd go?" Emmett asked

"You know her better than any of us do. Where do you think she would go?"

"Alaska, maybe… New York?" Emmett paced around the landing at the top of the stairs

"Emmett, there is no telling what Rosalie will do while she's in a state like this. Edward almost walked out into the sun in the middle of Voltura because he thought he'd lost everything. You have to go after her."

"That doesn't help me if I don't know where the Hell she is!" Emmett screamed into the foyer, the open space reverberating his already amplified voice.

"Malibu." Edward said grimly as he stepped out of the kitchen, Bella close behind him with an expression of worry on her still face.

"What?"

"She's headed for Malibu, California. It's the sunniest place she could think of, she's already driving a hundred miles an hour."

"Oh my God," Emmett breathed as he ran down the stairs in a flash that would have been too fast for a human to see.

"Take the Jag," Edward said as he tossed a set of keys to Emmett who caught them as he hit the bottom step, "if you push the turbo, you should be able to catch up to her by the time she has to stop for gas."

"If she doesn't get out and start running." Emmett said over his shoulder as he raced out the door.

Jasper had his hands on his temples trying to cope with all the emotions that were surging around him. I rubbed his back reassuringly and surveyed the remaining members of my family. Carlisle sighed and turned to me, saying

"Alice, I'd planned for your treatment to be today, but I completely understand if you want to wait, especially given all of this."

"No, I want to do it." I said firmly. I was concerned about Rosalie, and all her different decisions and futures were racing through my mind and impairing my vision, but Emmett was going after her, and Edward could keep track of all their thoughts.

"Alright. This is going to be in-home just like the rest of the procedures, but I think given the amount of blood we're going to be working with, we should do it somewhere with a drain."

"The downstairs shower. I always clean it but it's never been used… not like Alice really needs to worry about infection, but the baby…" Esme said and trailed off.

"Wonderful idea," Carlisle replied and kissed her lightly. He went and got his supplies, basically the werewolf claw scalpel that was menacingly black and curved, several bags of blood he had taken from the hospital, and a fresh "sample" from Jasper, who I knew had been given human blood the day before so it would have the best chance of working.

I lied down on the white tile of the shower with paper draped over me except for where Carlisle would be cutting me open, again.

"Drink this, Alice, before we get started." Carlisle handed me a two liter bag of O positive. I ripped it open with my teeth and drained the contents in a matter of seconds. It was cold, nothing like feeding from a live human, but the taste was still amazing. I could feel drops of it escaping my mouth and running down my cheeks, through my hair and onto the floor of the shower.

When the bag was dry, I put it aside, knowing that in that moment I looked every bit a vampire, complete with bloodstained mouth and crazed eyes.

"It may or may not help with the pain, but it should help to activate your cells again." He said as he prepared his scalpel

"Are you ready Alice?" He asked as he looked down at me with that horrible claw in his hand. I felt a tremor of fear at the memory of the pain of the last time, but then I caught Jasper's gaze and a wave of peace washed over me

"Yes."

In slow motion I watched the scalpel descend toward my abdomen and then I raised my eyes to the ceiling, counting the dust motes floating in and out of the beam of the overhead light before my world exploded in pain.

I felt things being pushed around inside me and the sensation of having blood poured into me. The smell of it was mouthwatering and repulsive at the same time given the amount of pain I was in.

After minutes or hours, I couldn't tell, Carlisle sat back and wiped his hands on a white towel, stains blossoming across it like red roses

"I gave it the best possible chance of working. All we can do now is to wait and see what will happen. You did beautifully, Alice."

I sat up and saw that my entire body was covered in human blood.

"I think maybe you need to make use of that shower. We'll leave so you can get cleaned up."

I nodded, thankful for the privacy. The scar on my stomach was not quite silver yet, it still pulsed with the angry red of the blood Carlisle had to use to seal me up, and it ached badly, but the pain was fading as I healed.

As I let the water wash away the blood from my body, I tried to peer back into the future again, to check on Rosalie, but it wasn't working. I guess all the emotions running high just gave a boost to my dwindling power.

I walked out of the bathroom and into the living room to join my family and they all had downcast faces. If my heart beat, it would have skipped

"What's the matter?" I asked on the defensive, "What's wrong?"

"Emmett found Rosalie." Edward murmured

"And?"

"And she's putting up a Hell of a fight."

"Well, that's better than being dead because the Volturi killed her for revealing herself in the sun, right?" I asked, desperate

"She attacked Emmett when he tried to stop her."

"Oh my God… is he alright?"

"For now. He still has thoughts, but they're weak." Edward said, his facial expression changing ever so slightly as he concentrated harder on Emmett and Rosalie's thoughts.

"Alice, don't worry about it. Edward is keeping an eye on them and you have a baby to nurture, I wouldn't want you to have gone through all of this just to miscarry." Carlisle talked to me calmly and then pulled me into a tight hug

"And if I know Rose, she won't hurt him." He said over my head to the rest of the people in the room, "she carried that boy back from being mauled by a bear. She might hurt him, but she doesn't have it in her to kill him."

"Alice, you make sure that baby does alright, we'll take care of everything else." Edward said and I nodded once Carlisle had released me.

"Can I…" I started to ask and then trailed off, not knowing whether or not I should proceed. Edward's topaz eyes flicked up at me and with a small smile he just said

"Yes," and tossed a bag of blood in my direction.

"Thank you," I replied, and started to move toward the kitchen

"Where are you going?" Esme asked

"I'm going to get a glass, like a civilized vampire." I smiled over my shoulder, and once I was in the kitchen, I placed a hand over my stomach lightly, testing the pain of the scar. Not too bad, but I wouldn't be doing any exercise crunches for a while.

I poured some of the blood into a glass and was drinking it at a steady pace when Carlisle walked in.

"Alice, whenever you feel that you need blood, just come in here and get some, okay?" He opened the door to the refrigerator we never had plugged in before to reveal the racks lined with bags of dark red blood, "I think it will be best for keeping your baby healthy."

"Okay," I nodded and took another sip of the cold blood.

"And one more thing… I'm not exactly sure how your baby would mature. Given that it would be created from vampire cells, I would assume that somehow it would be a vampire from birth, but the development is somewhat of a mystery."

"We'll figure that out when we get there, Carlisle." He smiled and we returned to the living room where Edward was still tracking Emmett and Rosalie. Never a dull day in the Cullen house.

**Author's Note: There will probably only be one or two chapters after this one. Everything is going to start to draw to a close, and if needed I'll write an epilogue for it.**


	10. Miracle

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Twilight.**

_Chapter Ten – Alice's POV_

Emmett and Rosalie finally came home. After the first month they were gone we started to worry that something had happened like they had been taken by the Volturi, but Edward kept assuring us that they were just moving around the country, Emmett somehow convinced Rosalie not to reveal herself in the sunlight, and she had insisted that they keep moving, not staying in any one town more than a couple of weeks. She said she had to wander for long enough that she missed having a stable home.

Carlisle is still keeping an eye on Renesmee and her condition, being one of the only known human/vampire hybrids meant that everything about her was measured and recorded for future reference. He had to prove to the Volturi that she wasn't just an immortal child, he had to show that she wasn't a violation, and they accepted his research.

What Carlisle should really get an award for is the miracle growing inside me. It's been three months since the procedure, but I'm almost due already. My pregnancy took longer than Bella's because the cells had to start from scratch building a baby, but I guess because we're vampires it is still much faster than a human.

I've been drinking human blood so regularly to keep my baby supplied with energy that my eyes have turned fully red again. I hate that. Every time I look in the mirror I feel like the monster I have spent so long trying not to be.

Because we're different from the wanderers and the scavengers that prey on hikers and loners out in the wilderness. We're civilized, we have a family, and we can live in a single place long enough to make friends. Not permanent ties, of course, we have to move on every five or ten years so people don't notice that we never age, but that's okay. That's plenty of time to get to know people, even fall in love.

Since ordinary medical methods wouldn't work for tracking my baby, Jasper has been helping by reaching out with his mind and trying to feel if there was anything wrong. In fact, he was the reason that we were able to tell the procedure worked in the first place.

About a month in, Jasper was lying with his head in my lap and his eyes closed and we were just enjoying each other's company, when all of a sudden he looked at me and said that my emotions felt different. I asked him what he meant and he got this strange look on his face that melted into excitement as he said it felt like there were two sets of emotions coming from me.

I started crying, I was so happy, and Jasper picked me up and spun me around. The whole house had a celebration that night because of my baby. Jasper says the emotions and mind sound feminine. I can't wait to meet my little girl.

I thought about all of this as I walked up to Carlisle's study. He has been having Jasper monitor the baby carefully so that he could predict when she was going to arrive. Ever since Rosalie got back, she and Esme have been putting up decorations in the spare room so that our daughter has a bedroom all furnished with frilly little pink things.

Renesmee, who is almost the size of an 8 year old by now, is excited to have a sort-of sister who she can play with. We all have told her that she has to be careful around the baby, because it will be new to the world, and won't be able to just tell us it's needs like she could.

"Come in Alice." Carlisle says just as I raise my hand to knock on the door. He must have heard my footsteps. I turned the knob and pushed the oak port out of my way as I step into the room. The baby shifts inside me as I sit down in one of the chairs across from Carlisle's desk.

"How are you feeling?" He asks me in a friendly way, hiding the paper he's writing on so that it doesn't just seem like he's interrogating me.

"I'm tired," I reply honestly, "but on the bright side, I'm back to beating Edward at chess."

"Your foresight returned? When did that happen?"

"It's been getting better over the course of the last month. I think it's because I'm not depressed anymore, because I know I'm going to have this baby."

"Yes," he says as he looks down at the paper and misses my facial expression changing, "any day now it would seem—Alice?" He says concerned when he looks up again

"Carlisle, I…" and my sentence ends in a grimace of pain. It feels like I'm being cut open with the werewolf claw again, which Carlisle told me I would have to be for the baby to be born.

"I guess any day is today. Come on, let's get you to the downstairs shower, I'll have Edward get Jasper and meet us there." Carlisle helped me limp down the stairs, and Esme and Bella were instantly on hand to help me the rest of the way to the bathroom floor while Carlisle got his supplies.

"Ripping…" I mumble as another wave of pain explodes from my abdomen

"I know, sweetie, I know. It hurts." Bella says reassuringly as she grips my hand. My red gaze meets her amber one, the animal blood hadn't quite flushed the newborn roses out of her eyes. She is the only woman in the house that knows what it feels like to have a vampire child trying to tear its way out of you, and having to have a C-section before it can. At least I don't have to go through the conversion right after it, though.

Carlisle scrubbed up as thoroughly as possible, and then worked expediently to cleanly open me up at free the baby. The tearing of my skin went almost unnoticed this time and soon the sound of crying reached my ears.

Through the fog of the pain, I reached out to hold her

"Just a second, love, Carlisle has to make sure she's okay… she is okay, right Carlisle?" Jasper and I both looked to Carlisle whose face was set in hard lines of concentration as he listened to the newborn's chest and then he handed her to me and I instantly cradled her against me. She was cold, well, she felt fine to me, but she wasn't the human temperature Renesmee had been when she was born.

She was very pink, and her eyes were clenched tightly shut, but she had Jasper's lips and nose, my small, almost pointed ears, and a tuft of black hair sticking up from the top of her head. Her tiny fists were curled into balls that she held up over her face as she sucked in breaths of air to cry. Her skin was puckered and wrinkled, but she was my daughter, and that made her the most beautiful baby in the world.

"Grace," I said as I looked down at her, smiling wider than I can ever remember smiling before, "because if it weren't for grace, she wouldn't be here." I said and planted a kiss on her forehead. Slowly Grace stopped crying, but continued to shake her fists. Then I noticed something strange.

"Carlisle… she isn't breathing." I started to panic

"I'm not surprised, she doesn't have a heartbeat either. She's pink because of all the blood you drank while you were pregnant, I suspect that she'll metabolize that like we metabolize the blood we consume. I think we should keep her on a mixed diet, mostly human with part animal blood, slowly increasing the amount of animal blood as she gets older so that she doesn't get so used to the human that she won't want to feed from animals, but so that she has enough human blood to grow up properly."

"Perfect," I acknowledged, only catching half of what Carlisle said, I was too busy staring into the face of a miracle. By all the laws that vampires knew, Grace shouldn't be lying here in my arms, shaking her tiny fists in the air, just like Renesmee shouldn't be running around outside playing with her father.

And yet, both these little girls are here and real, born into eternity without having to pay the painful price that we all did. Renesmee was a hybrid, but Grace was fully a vampire. She was born without a heartbeat or a need for air, learning how to hunt and how to use her powers would be as natural for her as a human baby learning how to walk. She would never know the limitations of a weak human body.

I sat there and cradled her, Jasper sat next to me with his arm around my shoulders, looking down at Grace with as much wonder and love as I was. This was our perfect moment, and Grace was the center of our world.

**The End**


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